DEFENSE SYSTEMS: What does your work as principal director for the Global Information Grid Enterprise Services Engineering Directorate entail?
MIHELCIC: The GIG-ES Engineering job is a new hat that I got a few months ago. Really, what I have is multiple roles. They include providing the overall systems engineering function for DISA. That ties back to that net-centric strategy and review process, which tells the technical programs inside of DISA what they must do—things like requirements, schedules and technology strategies.

I’m in charge of the overall systems engineering for all DISA programs. We also have a new enterprisewide systems engineering function that’s on the processing governance side for programs. In addition, I’m responsible for all professional development: engineering, hiring, training and moving around within the workforce all of our engineers and computer scientists.

The other major piece is to provide engineering for specific problems on the communications side in support of the Defense Information Systems Network. We provide support to the sustainment manager of DISN.

The other big piece of real engineering has to do with nuclear command and control support—the other piece of GIG-ES Engineering. We had a minor transformation recently where many of the engineers that do the day-to-day work in support of Net-Centric Enterprise Services, Net-Enabled Command and Control and Teleport programs now report directly to the program managers, but I still have overall governance control in DISA.

DEFENSE SYSTEMS: Can you talk a bit about the new Technology Reconnaissance Office that DISA recently created—its mission and the need for such an office?
MIHELCIC: The mission is to collaborate with DOD, federal, academic and industry partners to identify and recommend innovative engineering techniques and technologies that are relevant to the DOD mission.

The most promising and relevant technologies will be assessed and characterized for potential adoption. One of our best mechanisms out there is looking at independent R&D, and we’re trying to leverage that. The office is part of DISA’s overall strategy for acquiring capabilities.

I had a senior employee, Fritz Schulz, come back from the National Defense University’s Industrial College of the Armed Forces. It’s a finishing school, a graduate-level study program. He focused on the national security process and how acquisition and development fed that process. The students do a variety of things, everything from a thesis to a study of a particular problem. Schulz, one of our senior engineers, had written his thesis on disruptive technologies, so I asked him: “Why don’t you put your money where your mouth is and take over this new Technology Reconnaissance Office?”

Fritz put together a proposal, and it’s was off and running. We’re working with companies through the independent R&D programs to come up with our first cut of the technologies. We’re not trying to invent our own innovative things in the beginning.

DEFENSE SYSTEMS: Not so long ago, Defense agencies and services typically shunned DISA because they viewed it as offering inferior products and services that oftentimes cost more money than what vendors offered. How has DISA changed this perception?
MIHELCIC: I believe we have fundamentally changed that. First, by us accepting those criticisms from our customers. Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Bernie Skoch used to say perception is reality. And at a point, we acknowledged that perception had become reality and we started improving dramatically.

We addressed the infrastructure problems with our networks in late 1999 and 2000. We established a program of measurement. Under the former director, retired Lt. Gen. Harry D. Raduege Jr., we began a reorganization of DISA called Network Services. With the standup of Network Services, DISA built a singular organization focused on improving the network services we provided our customers. That was the first step in understanding and improving performance of the networks we provide to DOD.

We instituted a program to measure the latency, loss and availability of our data networks. Based on the results of this measurements program, we completely redesigned the Non-Classified IP Router Network and stood up a new high-bandwidth IP core network. The performance of our networks improved quickly and significantly.

We have an ongoing program of performance measurement and improvement to the point that our network performance rivals that of anything available in the world. We are now the provider of choice for long-haul networking for the department.

DEFENSE SYSTEMS: What do you do for fun?
MIHELCIC: I’m married with four kids, a dog, and guinea pigs. I view everything I do as fun. Work is fun; my family life is fun. My two sons are both scouts; one’s a Boy Scout and the other’s a Cub Scout. Many of my hobbies are my involvement in my children’s hobbies. I’m a scoutmaster. I mentor a scout troop in Ashburn, Va., and spend a lot of time hiking. I also have two daughters. I try to enjoy my job and family life.

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